The veneration of Donald Trump among white American Christians has now taken on openly blasphemous traits: There are golden statues, and he is increasingly depicted in the pose of Jesus Christ. Why? How did this happen?
White evangelical Christians in America see themselves as a persecuted minority. Their world is sinking while the Whore of Babylon rules in American cities. Trump, they believe, is the last person who can ensure that white Christian men remain in power. That is why they worship him like a messiah.

However, as every statistic shows, the religious right is in an existential crisis from which there is probably no way out. Young people are running away from them. The Baptist churches in the southern states are lurching from one scandal to the next because it has been found that sexual abuse is just as widespread among Protestants as it is among Catholics.

More and more evangelical pastors are quitting as they face congregations driven mad by the internet and right-wing TV networks: be it on the issue of Covid vaccinations, be it on the issue of gun rights, be it on the issue of dark-skinned Americans and immigrants. The Christian right in America has created a new Jesus who looks like John Wayne, rides a horse, wields a semi-automatic gun, despises the poor and minorities and hates his enemies.

Meanwhile, what is the situation on the left? Tyler Cowen, a renowned economist, recently noted on his blog that all the left-liberals he meets are actually religious: Catholics, Jews, Mormons, followers of an Orthodox church, and least of all Protestants. The right-wingers are typically more Nietzschean. "If a person is religious," Cowen writes, "that is a strong indication that he has political views that are not insane."

Tyler Cowen could have added that Joe Biden is the most religious president the United States has had since Jimmy Carter: a deeply devout Catholic and regular churchgoer who talks a lot about comfort and forgiveness. To anyone familiar with American history, this can't really come as a surprise. The Democratic left, which has always been religious in America, is returning to its roots: to the Hebrew Bible, whose God liberates a slave people. The American right, on the other hand, is increasingly worshipping idols and preaching the law of the jungle.